Five Hours

"Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man."
--John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist

Today is a travel day. So what better choice for today than a snap of the Star Ferry as it crosses from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon. It was hazy this morning and you can barely see the tall high-rise buildings against the mountains in the distance, looming like ghosts over the harbor. I decided to turn this into black and white, since the sunlight on the water was so magical, and it really stands out with the contrasting shadows. I think it gives the ferry a kind of "industrial" look, which goes along with the heavy dredging equipment behind. There's also a large cruise ship in the mist, which is oddly apropos for today's blip on travel.

Travel days in China are never easy and always exhausting. For some reason every trip we take seems to take a minimum of five hours. Fuzhou to Guangzhou: Five hours. Guangzhou to Shanghai: Five hours. Shanghai to Hong Kong: Five hours. Hong Kong to Fuzhou: Five hours. (You get the point.) For us, it's the magic number - every trip takes five hours. Sure, we've taken a few longer trips in China, but the usual routes for us are always about the same - they all take five hours, never less and seldom more.

Although we spend what seems like endless hours in vans driving between Hong Kong and Zhongshan these days (and that trip can take up to four hours one way), the Five Hour Rule applies specifically to when we're flying:

-- The trip starts with an hour trip to the airport; no matter how many new highways they build, tunnels they dig or bridges they put up, any trip to any airport in China is minimum one hour from the center of its host city, never less.

-- Then there's negotiating the airports, which are huge, crowded, confusing and rarely well-marked. The object is to locate the correct check-in line, where you stand your ground in the throngs of people, luggage carts, rolling carry-ons, running children and crying infants until you finally make it to the desk; there you hand over your passport and frequent flyer cards (another story altogether) and attempt to befriend the ticket agent in whatever language is feasible, while watching closely to make sure the tags she affixes to your bags actually match the city you're headed to. The idea is, if she likes you, this is far more likely to happen. All of this, with the appropriate skill, takes about half an hour.

-- Once you're on your way, tickets in hand, you join the endless parade of people winding slowly though security, clearing through customs and stopping to present IDs at multiple checkpoints in between; after which, with any luck at all, you finally end up at the airport lounge to await your departure: all in all, about one hour.

-- Barring delays, which immediately negate the Five Hour Rule, our flights are usually just over an hour, after which we get off the plane, collect our luggage, go through another security check to inspect our luggage tags, and make our way to the next airport transfer (cab, train or hotel car), all of which takes about half an hour, as long as the luggage handlers are working up to their usual speedy standards.

-- Finally, an hour ride from the airport to our final destination, and the trip is complete. Total trip time: Five hours, give or take a few minutes!

On travel days Chris and I look at each other and say, "Why can't we just blink ourselves there?" Unfortunately, Barbara Eden has crawled into her genie bottle, never to return. I sometimes suggest, "Why don't we just beam ourselves there?" to which Chris, with the logic of Mr. Spock, points out that Scotty resigned from Star Trek years ago. The truth is, just as is happening with domestic travel in the U.S. lately, it's not easy to get from one place to another in China; and for us, whenever anybody asks us how long our trip is, the answer is simple; we always have the same reply: Five hours.